


Darkness Reigns at the Foot of the Lighthouse

by amalcolm



Category: Haruki Murakami-Kafka on the Shore
Genre: Aristophanes - Freeform, Gender Roles, M/M, Plato's Symposium, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 09:58:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amalcolm/pseuds/amalcolm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is impossible to stay away from one's other half.  Can Kafka figure that out before it's too late?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness Reigns at the Foot of the Lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Overlimits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlimits/gifts).



XX  
 _So what now?_ The Boy Named Crow asks. He seems like he is snickering. My face feels hot though there is a nice breeze working its way through my flat. I pull my shorts back on and walk into the bathroom for a shower. 

_You can’t ignore this forever, you know. You did it again. You called out for him._

“Yeah, I know.” I say aloud. The water cascades down, a soft, endless sort of noise. Like rain. Like him. Oshima. “What do you suggest?”

_That’s kind of a stupid question. I mean, aren’t you technically an adult now? You_ did _just finish high school_.

I pull off my shorts. The gleam of the semen on my chest glistens in the strong light of my tiny bathroom. Maybe I am a legal adult now. But the boy named Crow is still there. 

Sometimes I wish he weren’t. Like when I’m masturbating. And I call out for Oshima, a transgendered man who I haven’t seen in three years. 

_Well, are you just going to stand there looking at yourself in that mirror? Or are you going to do something?_

I step into the shower. The water explodes on my body, my face and I close my eyes so that all I can see—and think—is the gentle, wet pulsations. I”ll do something, I decide. But I don’t say it out loud.

XX

Oshima took his cup of coffee over to his favourite chair—actually, his only chair, the leather wingback, and tried to get comfortable. He usually had no problem doing so. But today seemed to be the exception. The coffee was too sweet, too bitter. It seemed like he hadn’t had a decent cup in years. Since Kafka, he thought. He smiled. But it wasn’t sure what that meant. 

He rose to his feet and wandered over to his stereo. Perhaps music would help. He flipped through his collection, selected some Vivaldi and filled his small flat with abundance. But something was off. The music was too...lively. Too organised. He tried Paganini next but it made his heart cry. No. Not that. So he tried something a bit more modern. Maria Callas singing _La Traviata_. But before he could get through the first act, he felt as though he were being pulled apart. Into the night. Compelled to get up and go...somewhere. _Tokyo._

Finally, just before sleep was starting to fog his mind, he put on an old Duke Ellington disc. He had always been a bit ambivalent about jazz. He recognised its brilliance but it didn’t interest him the way some other genres that. But tonight the loud, cacophonous brass band seemed to fill every little hole of the penetrating darkness. Oshima sighed and closed his eyes.

XX

I get into my kei car, a Daihatsu, the next morning. I don’t take anything with me except sunglasses, a light jacket and a book— _The Symposium_. I’m not sure why I bring it; I’ve already read it three or four times, and I’m not really the type to re-read much. One of the things that has kept me going since coming back to Tokyo is reading all the books I can remember Oshima talking about or that I saw at his cabin. I want to know everything he knows. It’s as close a connection as I can keep with him. I read _Oedipus Rex_ , of course. T.S. Eliot. _The Tale of Genji_. Sophocles. Hamlet. 

_He didn’t mention Hamlet, the Boy Named Crow says. I’m sure he didn’t._

But for some reason I can remember him talking about it, even if I wasn’t there. Once or twice, I think about writing to Oshima, to ask about other books I should read, but I can’t. It would break the thread. And I’m afraid of finding out that it was all a dream.

It is late afternoon by the time I get to Takamatsu, to the Kamura Memorial library. I’m tired, especially of driving, something I’m not especially fond of. I bought the car with some of my father’s money, some of the inheritance I received after more than a year of police involvement when I returned to Tokyo. The first two years back were like being lost in a labyrinth. I try not to think about any of it. But the car is convenient and all-but necessary. I lean back in the seat, slowly pick up a bottle of Perrier that I purchased when stopping for petrol. The bubbly taste hisses against the pallet of my mouth. 

I can see the car. The green Miata. It doesn’t look as though it’s aged in three years. Several times, I put my hand on the door handle, once or twice I even crack the door. But I don’t get out. I just sit there, watching. Only two or three cars pull up to the building. Only one, an elderly woman in a pink blouse, goes in. She comes back out in less than a quarter of an hour. _Why would you leave so soon? The entire world’s in there._

While I still have light, I pick up The Symposium and I read. I read the entire Aristophanes speech and I think about my lost half, out there somewhere. Would it be male or female? How could anyone know for sure? For some reason, I see my other half as a genderless creation, sort of like a stick figure, running through a forest, hidden in black shadows. I reach out and try to touch it, but it’s two-dimensional and my hand misses it. 

_You do know that it is just a metaphor, right?_

“Some metaphors actually happen,” I tell the Boy Named Crow. 

Just as the sky is turning orange, I see the door of the library open. I freeze, even though there’s not a chance I can be seen. Oshima walks out and I feel my lungs press flat. The air won’t expel from them. 

His hair is shorter then I remember. Or perhaps he cut it. The front still cascades into his eyes, though. He looks tired. In his left hand, he carries a leather valise—sort of like a briefcase but the kind that opens at the top. And he’s still wearing a tie. This one is dark purple, loosely knotted and slightly askew. The way he walks, he looks like he hasn’t slept in months. My heart begins to pound and my hands slam into the steering column. I have this intense urge....to, to what?

Just as he reaches the Miata, he pauses. I can’t see his face very clearly, but I think he’s frowning. He looks around, shoves his hair out of his face. His head cocks slightly, like he’s listening. He sets his valise on the ground, opens it, ruts around. He pulls out a mobile, checks it, frowns deeper and puts it in his pocket. 

Then he turns and in almost one movement, he and the car bleed into one and the dark green Miata shadows into the growing dark.

_What exactly was the point of that? You saw him. Why didn’t you get out of the car?_

“I don’t know yet.”

“ _‘Yet’? What does that mean? Are you a stalker now?”_

“I don’t think so,” I tell the Boy Named Crow. “But he may not want to see me. Maybe it didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me. Maybe...nothing happened to him. Like it did to me.”

_Maybe you should have gotten out of the car._

Maybe I should have. But it’s too late now. I’m too tired to drive all the way back to Tokyo, so I drive to a hotel. Not the one by the YMCA, a different one, dumpier and cheaper. I get a room for the night, eat some crackers and tea from a vending machine, and pass out for twelve hours straight. I’m that tired. 

The next day, I drive back home as fast as the Daihatsu can go.

XX

Oshima limped into the library, his shirt wrinkled, his tie looking like a noose. He set his case on his desk a bit harder than he intended and yawned loudly. When his assistant set a steaming cup of coffee next to him, he jumped.

“Are you alright, Mr Oshima?” She asked. She was young, a University student, and only worked for a few hours in the morning, helped him open and provided just enough conversation to prevent him going mad. The patrons didn’t want to talk to the manager, after all. _The guardian_ , he thought. _The soldier, even. Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse_ , he thought. _As the old proverb goes. And I guess that means I’m the lighthouse keeper_. He sighed, rubbing his temples, not sure if he was thinking straight.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t sleep well last night. If I’m being honest, I haven’t slept in a few days now. And that’s out of character for me.”

She frowned. They were colleagues, close in age in fact, but not close in spirit. They didn’t really speak about their personal lives. She didn’t know much of anything about him outside of work. He was polite, well-spoken, very well-read. She suspected he was gay. But that was it. “Maybe you have a bug?” She suggested. “The flu? That could keep you from sleeping. Or maybe it’s just insomnia. Everyone has it from time-to-time. I get it every month, right on schedule.” Then she realised what she had just said and blushed a little. 

He sipped his coffee. It tasted like charred wood. But he drank it anyway, desperately needing some stimulant. His brain was static, as if the normal electric impulses were slightly out of tune. “I don’t suppose you heard anything yesterday, about the time I left? I heard the strangest...it was in the parking lot. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. At first, I thought it was my mobile...I don’t know...” He trailed off.

His assistant shook her head, concerned and a little disturbed out as well. She had never heard Mr Oshima speak like this. He always seemed to have it together. He always seemed deliberate, certain in his actions. As if he knew exactly who he was. She hadn’t met many people like that.

XX

When I get back to Tokyo, the first thing I do is enrol at a junior college. I had never enjoyed school, was glad to be done with high school, but I had to do something. _It’s a good decision_ , the Boy named Crow says. _It’ll keep your mind occupied. And it wouldn’t hurt you to meet some people, would it?_

“I guess not.” I say, even though I haven’t really any desire to do so. I browse through a course catalogue, picking classes at random, the most esoteric ones I come across, with names like Western Theory or Modern Political Economy. An advisor asks what sort of degree I wish to obtain but I tell him I don’t. “Just something to do,” I explain. He frowns at me. But I’m used to that.

I take a week-end job as well, at a gym a few blocks away from the college. It isn’t the best job, but it comes with free membership for employees and I spend almost all my free time there, working-out, lifting weights and swimming. I have the early morning shifts, and because most of the cliental are young students, the place is never very crowded. I bring my books with me to the front desk to study while I wait for people to sign in. I listen to my CDs while I fill towels, file and wipe down the apparatuses. I try to fill my mind. I clog it with history, philosophy, classic rock and jazz. I hope that by caulking all the cracks there would not be any room for Oshima and Takamatsu to leak through.

For the first few months, it works. Between the gym and the classes, I am so exhausted that I collapse into bed most nights. I sleep like Death. I eat more than I ever have before—making room for four meals to accommodate all the extra calories I’m burning. My body is about as close to perfect as I can get it—toned, strong and functional in every way. 

But there is something missing. Something in the night that sometimes wakes me. Something hidden in the silence. Like a subliminal message I can’t quite allow to penetrate my mind.

_You’re gonna have to make some sort of connection_ , He tells me. I sigh and bury my head under the pillow.

There is a girl in one of my classes—she has pink hair and wears a lot of shirts with cartoon characters on them. For some reason, she reminds me of Sakura. We are assigned to work with a classmate on some readings and I end up with her. I ask if she would like to get a cup of coffee and discuss the book. She agrees, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear and smiling coyly. I try very hard not to blush.

We have coffee and talk for about an hour. She wants to work in the fashion industry, I find out. Her parents insisted that she at least attend Junior college. She doesn’t read much, but she does like music. She likes Dir En Grey and Gazette, two bands I don’t know very well. I promise to get their CDs. I want to ask her opinion on Aristophanes but I can’t make the words come out. I’m sure she’ll laugh.

We meet for coffee a few more times and then she invites me to her flat. She has a roommate but she works during the day and we’re alone. When she takes off her Road Runner t-shirt, she is not wearing a bra. Her breasts are very tiny as if they’ve just appeared on her body. She pulls off her jeans and panties. I don’t realise that I’m holding my breath until my own khakis and shorts are on the floor. She has a condom in her hand, it crackles as she opens the little black packaging. I’m so hard already that when she slides it on my prick I gasp and start to leak. She asks me if I need a few seconds to get it together. I’m blushing furiously and I know that I’m going to come the second I get inside her. 

_Well, at least you’re trying_ , the Boy Named Crow says.

I seriously want to tell him to Fuck Off, something I don’t think I’ve ever said before. But I can’t because I’m too busy apologising to her and thinking about how Oshima looked the day I saw him sleeping—how he looks like a man when he’s awake and a woman when he’s asleep. 

XX

When he was little and his parents didn’t know what to do with him, he would run to his Grandfather. He was a small man in a cardigan sweater who smoked cigars and read books and listened to music on an old turntable record player. He was not educated but he had read so vastly that many people came to ask his opinion about politics or history or philosophy. Oshima enjoyed just sitting with him, drinking the strong, earthy coffee that the man drank compulsively and staring at the green garden that grew behind their little shack.

“What is your problem, _Otouto_?” He would ask and offer him a toffee or a piece of butterscotch. He always had hard candy in the pocket of his cardigan.

“I don’t understand why I am different,” he would say. His parents treated him as a girl because that was how his genitals were shaped but he knew that it wasn’t correct. He had seen his brother Sada naked before and he realised that there had been some sort of mistake. His parents had assumed that this was just play-acting, wishful thinking, something that he would out-grow. He didn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t a girl when he had no proof.

“Of course you are different, _Otouto_ ,” the old man said, calling him as he always did ‘little brother.’ He was the only one who had understood that he was a boy. He had accepted it completely. He did not think that Oshima was crazy. “The clay that formed you was special. It is not the same that moulded Sada or your mother or your father. You are unique. You should be proud.”

Oshima thought about this as the peppermint candy he had been sucking on melted on his tongue. He didn’t want to be unique. He would have preferred to have a body that matched his brain. “How do you know I am not just a mistake?”

His Grandfather clucked his tongue and went to turn the record over. He was playing Schubert, one of his favourite composers. He almost always played it when Oshima was there. “You remind me of the Sonata in D,” he would tell him, although he never really explained. The boy didn’t understand how a person could remind someone of a piece of music. “The maker does not make mistakes,” he told his grandson. “Therefore, you were made this way intentionally. There is some purpose you are intended for. It is up to you to find what that purpose is.”

“What do you think my purpose is?”

But the old man would never tell him that. He would give him books to read, he would talk to him about anything. But he would not give his opinion on that one point. Only once did Oshima hear him remark on the matter when he accidentally heard him speaking to his mother about him. She had, as usual, expressed concern over his refusal to wear a dress or to answer to his female name. The old man rarely was angry at his daughter. But this one time he heard him slam his fist down on a table. The record player, which had been sending out the soft notes of Chopin, skipped several times repeating notes. “You should not speak that way!” He said, his voice soft and loud at the same time. “The boy is a soldier! He is a guardian. He is the lighthouse keeper. You would do well to remember that, my daughter.”

XX

The signals are getting louder. They keep me up at night; they distract me during the day. It’s sort of like white noise but instead of having a soporific, mellowing effect—like rain—it’s more like someone screaming very softly. Like a building imploding brick-by-brick. The insistent whirr of a very large magnet. 

“I tried to ignore it,” I tell Crow as I drive toward my destiny. “I tried to be normal, to distract myself, to forget. It didn’t work. I have to know.” I gripped the wheel so tightly my wrists ache. The Boy named Crow doesn’t say anything. I’m thinking about the cat. The one I saw yesterday morning. I’m not really a cat person, an animal person in fact, but for some reason this particular cat stops me dead in my tracks. It has long black fur that seems to grow on its body in short waves. Its long tail twitches in short erect bursts, unlike any other cat I have ever seen before. I stare at it and it at me for what seems like hours. I am so convinced that the cat is going to start talking that I can’t move for fear that I’ll miss it. 

It doesn’t of course. Who ever heard of a cat talking? It finally grows bored and slinks off, walking in a clean, smooth manner that makes it seem less feline somehow. But I swear that it was trying to compel me back to the Kamura Memorial Library. Maybe the cat originated there somehow. I remember Oshima mentioned that there were a number of strays around the place, people dumped kittens there or something. 

_And what if you are wrong? Then what are you going to do? Kill yourself? Go crazy? Like your father?_

I really wish he wouldn’t ask so many appropriate questions. Maybe I had needed that when I was fifteen. Maybe he had protected me from my father...from the world, even. But even if that was the route fate had paved for me, I still would go. Now. I had to know. I had to see him.

_You know you don’t need to be the toughest fifteen-year old in the world anymore. You’re not fifteen._

“Maybe I still am. Maybe I can’t grow, can’t change until I do this. You don’t know.”

The Boy Named Crow sighed. I ignored him, concentrating on the line on the road so intently I saw nothing else. I had needed him so much at one point in my life that now that I didn’t I had no idea how to release my grip and watch him fly away.

XX

In the age of digital Technicolor, the percentage of people who dream in black-and-white decreased with every subsequent generation. For people under thirty, it was down to about 5 percent. But Oshima dreamed in black and white. And red. 

He dreamt of a huge bird. It wasn’t possible to tell specifically what kind—only that it was black with gleaming death feathers and red eyes that could fly right through you. He was sweating, tossing and turning in his bed. The bird—crow¬—was watching him. Hungrily. But not because it wanted to eat him. It wanted to devour him. The man-size wing came toward him, a long thick feather. It pointed toward his mouth. As if it wanted Oshima to open, to allow him access. He was panting. When he awoke, he would find that his pillow was so saturated with perspiration that he was forced to throw it out. 

And his sheets were stained with semen.

XX

I arrive at the library when the sun is a glowing red eye above me. I want to hesitate—just like last time—but I work through the nauseating lump of ice in my gut and force myself out of the car. Crow is nowhere in sight. I frown. When had he disappeared? I can barely recall the hours I’d spent in the car.

Car.

The green Miata is not there. I swallow my heart and almost gag.

Sitting at the desk in Oshima’s place is a young girl, perhaps only a few years older than myself, with a conservative page-boy hairstyle tucked behind one ear. She smiles a bit crookedly up at me, eyebrows furrowed. It occurs to me that I am probably flushed and exhausted-looking.

“Can I help you, sir?” She asks. 

“Oshima,” the word explodes off of my tongue. “Where is he?”

She blinks, probably put off by my abruptness. There is a sharp long yellow pencil lying abandoned next to her left hand. I focus my attention on that object rather than on her. I can almost feel the tap-tap of it against the countertop as Oshima constantly strokes it, patting it against any hard surface. My penis twitches at the memory and I try to surreptitiously adjust myself, hoping the girl doesn’t notice. “Mr Oshima is not here at the moment. He decided to take some time off”—

“Oh...He isn’t...I mean, he is alright, isn’t he?” A picture forms in my head. A picture of a bird attacking Oshima, pecking his eyes out. Or maybe he is already dead and the bird is just scavenging. My knees buckle slightly.

“He has been a bit under the weather lately,” she says. She blinks again. “Do you need to sit down? You look really unwell yourself.”

I shake my head. “No. I have to find him. It’s very important.” I hope she won’t ask me why.

“I imagine he’s probably at his flat,” she says. Then she cocks her head slightly, studying me in an avian sort of way. “You...your name isn’t Kafka by any chance, is it?”

I almost explode. But I manage to nod my head.

She reaches down and extracts something from a drawer. An envelope. A very neat and precise hand has written _Kafka Tamura_ on the outside. “He left this for you some months ago. Asked me to give it to you on the off-chance that you showed up.”

XX

_My dear Kafka—  
I don’t know if you are ready or not. But I may not have much time to give you. I tried to be patient, to wait until you knew for certain, but I’m fading. Half the time I think I’m just a memory or a dream anymore. The music helped to keep me grounded at first, but now I see the bird everywhere. I want to sleep so badly that I don’t think I can keep awake even for you much longer. I would have sought you out—gone to Tokyo—but this remains your journey. You have to find me, just as you found your mother and sister before. _

_Remember—‘love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.’_

_Oshima_

XX

The light shows me the way. It is dark now, but I barely notice. There is a distinct light guiding me and all I have to do is follow it. 

As much as I am able, I go as the Crow flies.

XX

In his dream, he sees a man kissing him. At first, all he can do is see it, but soon he can feel it as well. The lips are hard, determined. They seem to be sucking the life right out of him. But he doesn’t struggle. The light is burning within his body, struggling to be free, desperate to find an outlet of escape. 

The tongue appears. It rolls off the corners of his mouth, down his jaw, to his chin, his neck. The light begins to surge, to band together within him. He can feel the burning in his groin when he touches himself.

The hand of the man kissing him hesitates. Oshima feels his strength returning slightly, feels the fire is slowly resurrecting him. He takes the hand—it is a smooth, muscular hand—and he places it between his legs. It occurs to him that he is naked but he can’t for the life recall how he came to be in that state. The hand strokes him and once again the light surges. It seems to sense that it has found a possible exit. Oshima groans and reaches around behind him. He finds what he is looking for and it is already swollen with excitement. He pulls it slightly toward him. The man chirps out a grunt and the dreamer can feel him pulse against his back. He pushes the cock closer. It feels almost as desperate as Oshima does himself.

Time is irrelevant in a dream. A minute is an hour and a day is a millennium. When the man thrusts into his anus, it feels almost as though an entire lifetime has passed. Each thrust is a month of pleasure, every jolt of satisfaction that it gives him lasts years. He throws his head back and can feel the man’s breath gasping into his hair. The light is so bright within him now that there is no holding it back. It burns behind his eyes, in his eardrums, in his clitoris and in the parts of his body that he knows are there but that can’t be seen by anyone but himself. 

The man’s hands hold him close as he pushes harder into him. They envelope him like a soft blanket of muscle. Oshima marvels at the fact that he can bare to hold him when he is bursting with all the light of the world. He must be as hot as the sun. He opens his mouth to call to him, but the words are erased by the ejaculation he experiences. There are sounds involved but not words. His mind has gone completely red.

The man thrusts so hard into him that he is sure there will be blood, but he doesn’t care. He screams his name and releases a surge within him. It cannot compete with what he has just done but the cock remains in him for some time, shuddering and the man groans off and on for the time it takes him to fully return to life.

XX

Oshima is looking at me with wide eyes. “Kafka?” He asks, as if he doesn’t recognise me. My sac is still sending pleasurable ripples through my cock. And he must have just had the orgasm of a lifetime because I have never heard anyone scream like that. It was like...a bird of prey. He yelled something about a light, even though the flat is black as midnight, and then the contractions of his body all but ripped the semen from me. My poor penis would be so sore afterward that I would hardly be able to touch it to urinate, even hours later.

“I’m here,” I tell him, tucking that stubborn piece of hair behind his ear. “I think I was almost too late.”

“You nearly were. I couldn’t hold back any longer. It wanted to escape so badly.”

He lays back and I can see his entire body, nude, gleaming, shining. I want to touch him badly. But I don’t need to anymore. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say. “We’re whole again.”

He looks at me. His eyes are dark. “No one actually finds their severed half,” he says. 

“I did. We did. I’m sure of it now. I can feel it.”

He seems to be thinking. He turns his head toward the window and stares at it for some time. There is something out there, something tapping softly on the glass. His eyes close. “I’m exhausted, Kafka. I think I’ll actually be able to sleep for the first time in years. Since you left.” He reaches for my hand and gently pulls me toward him. I collapse on the bed next to him. I’m pretty tired myself. 

“The light,” I mumble into his hair. “It must have burned.”

“Mmm...”

“From the sun.”

“The sun...” he mumbles sleepily and then sits up, shock freezing his features upon me. “What do you mean? How did you know? Kafka, I didn’t tell you.”

“In Aristophanes speech,” I tell him. “Those who were male/male are descended from the sun. They are homosexual but he calls them the best men. The most manly. They are the soldiers. The guardians. Like you.”

He seems shocked. I can’t believe that he hasn’t worked that out. I thought there was almost nothing he didn’t know. But maybe people are designed to be mysteries to themselves. That way they are forced to seek out their missing half, the one person who can tell in an instant all about them. I wonder if he understands me now as well as I understand him. Oshima swallows a few times. He seems on the verge of tears. God, I hope he doesn’t cry. I don’t think I can handle seeing him do so. But he doesn’t. Instead, he leans over, kisses me on each eyelid and lies back down. “Thank you,” he says, “for seeing me the way I’m supposed to be seen.”

I just smile. I can ask him about myself in the morning. The last thing I remember before falling asleep is the sound of wings flapping further and further away. I know that I will never see the Boy Named Crow Again.

XX


End file.
